There are many possible factors that can explain this disparity. Money and revenue come out at the top reason why women's sports are less popular than men's; they are less profitable. Out of all of the sponsorship money in the sports world, only 0.15% of it goes towards women. On the other hand, men's sports make about 1.5 billion from media deals alone. Another argument some make is the physical difference between males and females. Some assume that men's sports are more popular due to their "better" athleticism and speed that make matches more entertaining to watch. This is simply not the case for all sports. In a sport like Formula One, there is no distinguishable difference between men and women racing, but women's F1 racing is virtually unknown.
Formula 1 driver Susie Wolf, a champion for gender equality in the sport.
I really enjoyed this post. It had a lot of good points. I think the difference in popularity between the sexes comes down to culture and history. A nice parallel is European Soccer versus American Soccer. In the European leagues, such as the EPL, Champions League, and La Liga, there is so much history behind the clubs along with the fandom culture (the chants and other like traditions). In American has struggled to establish a culture for soccer, so the sport has suffered. Women and sports, like American soccer, do not have the same deep history as men in sports. It is difficult to establish a culture overnight. However, American soccer and the MLS have made strides by investing heavily into their sport. Maybe investment into women's sports, although not easy, is needed to give their sports the proper platform.
ReplyDelete-Connor Mullen
Connor,
DeleteThis is a very interesting point you made about the culture. I haven't really thought about it, but it makes complete sense. Thanks for sharing something new with me. I think an investment in women's sports is necessary and should be done in the future.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the point you make about the popularity of men's sports over women's sports. Furthermore, I like the point you make about certain sports, like Formula 1, being gender neutral, which proves that physical difference is not the sole contributing factor to this phenomenon. However, I don't think women's sports are less popular because they are less profitable; I think they are less profitable because they are less popular. As for the reason, I agree with Connor, who pointed out that the essence of sport is deeply rooted in history. I would be curious to hear other opinions on the matter.
ReplyDeleteReally great point Sam, I agree with the fact that women's sports are less popular because they are less profitable. But I also think there is a bit of a paradox, in that women's sports are less profitable because they are less popular. These two factors constantly switch off, and both are vital to the success of women's sports.
DeleteThis post brought up some really great points regarding the issue of why women's sports are less profitable than men's. I agree with the last two comments, arguing that sports are historical, and there is much less of a history for women's sports as there is for men's. I really liked the point that you brought up about how the argument of "better athleticism" in men's sports does not always work, using the argument of women's Formula 1. It had never even occurred to me that there was such thing as women's F1 racing, which makes me wonder about how many women's sports go completely unknown to the general public.
ReplyDeleteI liked this blog post a lot. It is interesting to note how much less women make in professional sports as compared to men. The main difference is that more men like sports than women, therefore, they want to see the men play. This is related to the 0.15% of sponsorship money going to professional female athletes, as mentioned in the article. Do you think one day female athletes could get paid similarly to men in their field if the sport gets more popular?
ReplyDeleteAlec,
DeleteThat is a tough question to answer. I believe that as there is less gender discrimination in society over time, female athletes could get paid similarly to men. However, for this to happen, women's sports would have to become more popular among fans to get the money to pay equal wages.
This is a really interesting post. Growing up playing so many sports through high school, I can definitely relate to the comments about uneven money distribution between genders. Many times we would want new equipment or uniforms, but would not be able to get them until the next year because the football team was getting new uniforms every year or the basketball team needed new basketballs. I remember we weren't able to get new softball uniforms one year because the baseball needed to get theirs, which did not make any sense to us. It's definitely hard to shift from where we are now to even distribution of spending, but it definitely needs to improve in all levels of sports.
ReplyDelete-Courtney Amiot